Dr. Xu: A Chinese Medicine Novel

The online dispute carries on into the night, with a working morning still ahead.

After work, Evan went to see Adam, then returned to his own place. He reviewed all the patients he had seen that day, checking that he had made no mistakes or omissions in his pattern assessments and prescriptions. Only then did he settle down with a medical book.

As the night wore on, he put the book down to use the bathroom. Suddenly he remembered the task the system had given him. Hadn’t it promised him a reward for debunking those false claims?

“It’s been ages. Where’s my reward?” Evan said, puzzled.

The system didn’t seem particularly bright. It never explained its requirements properly, yet always reserved the right to interpret them however it liked. It had told him to clear up the misinformation. He’d done that, hadn’t he? Still no reward.

Evan shook his head helplessly, but didn’t dwell on it. He didn’t even go online to look. He simply went back to his book.

What Evan didn’t know was that the online battle had broken out all over again.

The comments beneath Clara’s Weibo post were full of haters once more.

“Chinese medicine has absolutely no basis for saying women can’t eat cold food during their periods. My friend eats ice cream all the time and she’s fine.”

“Women abroad have cold drinks and ice cream every day during their periods. Why are they fine?”

“Every restaurant in Japan serves ice water all year round. Why aren’t their women having problems?”

“Americans don’t even drink hot water. Why are their women fine?”

“These witch doctors are hurting people!”

And on it went.

Clara was bewildered. How had everything turned against them again?

At last, Dr. Cinnamon posted on Weibo again:

“Claims about drinking cold water during menstruation and skipping breakfast must be judged on medical research. Reading a few ancient books and adding some mystical nonsense doesn’t give you a scientific conclusion…”

He attached papers from research institutes abroad.[1]

As for crabs and persimmons, he didn’t mention them once. He acted as though the whole subject had slipped his mind.

That encouraged even more people to join in. DrXuChineseMedicine’s Weibo feed was overrun again. Even Charlie’s wasn’t spared.

Clara messaged Charlie on WeChat.

“Why is this happening?”

He sent a crying, face-covering emoji.

“What can you do? Did you think someone with forty million followers would be easy to take on? Besides, you shouldn’t have followed it up with that Chinese medicine article. That gave him something to attack. If you’d just kept after him about the crabs and persimmons, we wouldn’t have lost.”

“There’s nothing we can do now! Forget it. At least we were right about the first part, and we picked up plenty of followers who were just passing by. Call it a success. Don’t reply to anything else. It’ll blow over in a couple of days. Nobody will remember.”

Clara put down her phone, her brows tightly drawn. She hadn’t wanted more followers. At first she’d wanted to expose Dr. Cinnamon. After that, she’d wanted to use the attention to get accurate information out.

The whole point had been to explain Chinese medicine properly, to keep more people from falling into unhealthy habits. That was what she’d really wanted. Everything she’d done had been leading up to this.

And now the part that mattered most was the very thing under attack.

Clara looked utterly miserable. She had no idea how she was going to explain this to Evan tomorrow.

But she couldn’t think of a way out. Whenever she mentioned menstruation or breakfast, the other side would seize on it and hammer her. Talk about Chinese medicine and they’d call her unscientific. It would always end the same way. There was nothing she could do.

Yet she couldn’t leave out the part that mattered most.

Clara shook her head, dispirited. She left Weibo alone, tidied up the article, and posted it to their WeChat public account. She could only hope it would reach a few more people.[2]

It was late. Lily and April were still following the battle. They hadn’t expected Dr. Cinnamon to turn things around, either.

At her home in the new development on the south side of town, Ms. He was reading Weibo. She shook her head slightly. Just as she’d expected, he’d struck back.

“What a waste,” the Abbess sighed. To someone who worked in digital media, it really was a shame. Then she thought of Evan’s stubbornness.

A matter of provenance: NovelPhoenix published the author’s chapter, but this reproduction was not permitted; readers there support them.

She shook her head again. A rueful smile appeared on her usually cold face.

“But that’s just like you.”

She picked up her phone and sent a message to the company-wide group chat:

“All-staff meeting tomorrow morning. 8:30.”

The next morning.

April and Lily hurried out to work.

After washing up, Evan left for work too. As usual, he bought two steamed buns from the shop by the clinic entrance.

Alex hurried out of bed. He had to go on ward rounds with his boss, Dr. Henry Zhong, that morning.

When Evan reached the clinic, Clara dejectedly told him what had happened the night before.

Now he understood. No wonder the system hadn’t given him his reward. He’d thought all he had to do was refute the false claims. Apparently its requirements were more demanding than that.

“It’s all right,” Evan said reassuringly. “As long as you’ve done your best and have a clear conscience.”

“I know,” Clara said despondently. “I just hate leaving it like this.”

Evan checked the system task in his mind. He wasn’t happy about it either, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“You did your best. Don’t let it get to you. Let’s go see your dad.”

“Okay.”

Clara led him upstairs.

Starlight Culture and Media.

The Abbess stood at the front of the large meeting room, her expression cold as she stared at the assembled staff.

Every one of them was on edge.

Whenever the Abbess looked like this, it meant she was going to war.

The last time she’d worn that expression had been when she’d taken on Mimeng, the biggest WeChat public account aimed at women. Who had angered the she-devil this time?

Lily and April exchanged a glance, then both lowered their heads, afraid to speak.

Meanwhile, Alex was panting as he changed into his white coat and rushed upstairs to join Dr. Zhong on ward rounds. He’d made it just in time.

The Chinese medicine department had inpatients too, though most were there for treatment of chronic conditions. Patients needing other kinds of inpatient care were generally admitted elsewhere in the hospital.

That meant their inpatient numbers were small. They could take more time and be more thorough on each round. Dr. Zhong would have each of the young doctors examine the patients, giving him a chance to teach them.

When Dr. Zhong entered the ward, one of the young doctors behind him handed over a chart. He glanced through it.

“This patient reports a dull stomach ache going back years. He gets abdominal pain whenever he eats even a little cold food or fruit. He’s tried all kinds of medicine for his stomach without success, so he’s come here for inpatient treatment. Here’s his chart. Have a look.”

Dr. Zhong passed it back.

“Examine him yourselves. What do you think is causing his symptoms?”

The young Chinese medicine doctors came forward one by one and began asking questions.

Apart from the stomach pain, the patient seemed in good spirits. With so many doctors attending to him, he was very cooperative, answering whatever they asked. After the questions, they examined his pulse.

Each took a turn.

Alex went last. He carefully examined the pulse at the patient’s cunkou, the pulse-taking area at the wrist.[3]

The other young doctors returned to Dr. Zhong.

“What’s his condition?” Dr. Zhong asked.

“He prefers warmth and dislikes cold, and eating cold food brings on pain,” one of them said. “That points to deficiency cold in the Spleen and Stomach. He’s already so cold. Wouldn’t eating cold food just make him feel worse? We should treat him with Lizhong Tang.”[4]

Dr. Zhong neither agreed nor disagreed.

“Do the rest of you think so too?”

They nodded.

Dr. Zhong frowned slightly and looked over the group.

“Where’s Alex?”

They turned. Alex was still taking the patient’s pulse.

They stared. Why was he taking so long today?

The patient was beginning to feel uneasy.

“Is… is there something wrong with me? Why’s he taking… so long?”

Dr. Zhong looked at Alex, a little puzzled himself.

“He’s just… a bit more… thorough.”

“Oh.”

The patient relaxed.

It was quite a while longer before Alex finally finished examining both wrists. His face lit up.

He rose. Seeing everyone watching him, he lifted his chin slightly.

“No. Deficiency cold in the Spleen and Stomach is only the outward presentation. The underlying mechanism isn’t in the Spleen or Stomach.”

“What?”

The other young doctors were taken aback.

Reader Notes

Reader Notes

↩︎ The online claims. The comments make sweeping claims about women in different countries; these are the commenters’ arguments, not population studies. Chinese medicine’s “cold” food category can also concern a food’s traditional nature rather than its serving temperature. Dr. Cinnamon’s quoted post shifts the argument to research, but the chapter supplies no titles or methods for the papers he attaches. They cannot be identified or assessed from this passage. Menstrual pain itself has several possible causes. Sources: Hong Kong Department of Health — Food and the four natures; ACOG — Painful periods.↩︎ WeChat public accounts. A public account publishes articles to readers and subscribers within WeChat. Posting there is distinct from sending Charlie a private message or writing in the company’s group chat. Clara has moved her article to another public channel; the passage does not say that she has stopped publishing it or restricted it to friends. Her hope of reaching more people remains a hope. Source: Tencent — Weixin Official Accounts.↩︎ Cunkou and pulse examination. Cunkou is the wrist region over the radial artery used in Chinese medicine’s pulse examination. Practitioners feel adjoining positions called cun, guan, and chi with three fingers, assessing qualities as well as rate. It is one part of a wider assessment that also includes observation and questioning, both present here. The term identifies where Alex is examining the patient; it does not supply a pulse finding or establish what is causing the pain. Sources: WHO — International standard terminologies on traditional Chinese medicine, entries 856–857; Hong Kong Polytechnic University — Four diagnostic methods.↩︎ Deficiency cold and Lizhong Tang. In this traditional pattern, insufficient warming function is associated with cold-sensitive digestive complaints. “Spleen” and “Stomach” name Chinese medicine’s functional systems; the phrase does not by itself identify an anatomical lesion or a measured low body temperature. Lizhong Tang is the decoction form of a classical formula associated with warming the middle and supporting those functions. Here it is a young doctor’s proposed treatment, not a prescription already given or a diagnosis the senior doctor has endorsed. Sources: WHO — International standard terminologies, entry 1225; Hong Kong Baptist University — Li Zhong Wan, including the decoction method.